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Half of India Without Electricity As Power Grid Crisis Deepens

Posted by Soulskill on from the india's-population-is-1.2-billion dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that a massive power breakdown has hit India for a second day running, leaving more than half the country without power as the northern and eastern grids have both collapsed. The breakdown has hit a large swathe of the country including Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan states in the north, and West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Jharkhand in the east. Power cuts are a common occurrence in Indian cities because of a fundamental shortage of power and an aging grid. The chaos caused by such cuts has led to protests and unrest on the streets but the collapse of an entire grid is rare — the last time the northern grid failed was in 2001. India's demand for electricity has soared in recent years as its economy has grown but its power infrastructure has been unable to meet the growing needs. In the weeks leading up to the failure, extreme heat had caused power use to reach record levels in New Delhi and on July 30 a line feeding into the Agra-Bareilly transmission section, the 400-kV Bina-Gwalior line, tripped, triggering the collapse. The second grid collapse occurred on 31 July as the Northern, Eastern and North-Eastern power grids of India tripped/failed causing power blackout in 19 states across India. The crisis was allegedly triggered after four states — Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and UP — drew much more than their assigned share of power."

4 of 413 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Power in developing countries... by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Informative

    Coal is only cheapest because it can externalize its waste disposal cost. If the Nuclear power plants were allowed to just dump their waste into the air that would bring down costs quite a bit.

    The costs are comparable if clean air and medical costs for those impacted have a value.

  2. Corruption in India by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Informative
    The corruption in India (and Pakistan, China and Bangladesh etc) is different from the corruption in the western countries. In the west, corrupt officials do illegal things for bribes of money or power or women. In the East corrupt officials demand money to do their regular job for which they get paid salaries. Simple things like getting a driver's license or getting fitness certificate for your bus/truck, or getting a residency certificate to apply for a bank loan, or getting a legal heir certificate to probate a will, or to register a property deed, or police verification report to apply for passport or no objection certificate from the Urban Development Authority for something or the other, or from the water board for something else .... any thing you need to do, there are two things that are certain:

    1. You will need certificates. No matter what you do. Anything you do must have an application, usually in triplicate, and it should be accompanied by certificates. Tons and tons of certificates.

    2. All these certificates must be obtained by bribing some official or another.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Corruption in India by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 4, Informative

      In the East corrupt officials demand money to do their regular job for which they get paid salaries. Simple things like getting a driver's license or getting fitness certificate for your bus/truck, or getting a residency certificate to apply for a bank loan, or getting a legal heir certificate to probate a will, or to register a property deed, or police verification report to apply for passport or no objection certificate from the Urban Development Authority for something or the other, or from the water board for something else .... any thing you need to do, there are two things that are certain:

      1. You will need certificates. No matter what you do. Anything you do must have an application, usually in triplicate, and it should be accompanied by certificates. Tons and tons of certificates.

      2. All these certificates must be obtained by bribing some official or another.

      What you are describing here is NOT "corruption". It is "graft". Subtle difference, possibly, but significant, from a cultural perspective - some cultures have no problems with graft (it's assumed to be one of the perks of the job)....

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  3. Re:Everyone's thinking it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dell support is in Bangalore which was not affected.

    And I have been in the building where they receives calls, the place has a generator the size of a large hotel lobby, so as long as the gas lasts, they can. They also have redundant phone lines, so even if one network operator goes down, they are in business